Description

Alice Munro's territory is the farms and semi-rural towns of south-western Ontario. In these dazzling stories she deals with the self-discovery of adolescence, the joys and pains of love and the despair and guilt of those caught in a narrow existence. And in sensitively exploring the lives of ordinary men and women, she makes us aware of the universal nature of their fears, sorrows and aspirations.show more

Flap copy

In these fifteen short stories--her eighth collection of short stories in a long and distinguished career--Alice Munro conjures ordinary lives with an extraordinary vision, displaying the remarkable talent for which she is now widely celebrated. Set on farms, by river marshes, in the lonely towns and new suburbs of western Ontario, these tales are luminous acts of attention to those vivid moments when revelation emerges from the layers of experience that lie behind even the most everyday events and lives.
"Virtuosity, elemental command, incisive like a diamond, remarkable: all these descriptions fit Alice Munro."--"Christian Science Monitor
"How does one know when one is in the grip of art--of a major talent?....It is art that speaks from the pages of Alice Munro's stories."--"Wall Street Journalshow more

Review quote

"The finest writer of short stories working in the English language today" The Times "The greatest living short story writer" -- A. S. Byatt Sunday Times "A remarkable writer whose major characters emerge in shining clarity... A major talent is at work here" Los Angeles Times "Munro's power of analysis, of sensations and thoughts is almost Proustian in its sureness" New Statesman "Read not more than one of her stories a day, and allow them to work their spell: they are made to last" Observershow more

About Alice Munro

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize for 2009, Alice Munro is the author of eleven collections of stories, most recently The View from Castle Rock, and a novel, Lives of Girls and Women. She has received many awards and prizes, including three of Canada's Governor General's Literary Awards and two Giller Prizes, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Literary Award, the W.H. Smith Book Award in the UK, the National Book Critics Circle Award in the US, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for The Beggar Maid. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, and other publications, and her collections have been translated into thirteen languages. She lives with her husband in Clinton, Ontario, near Lake Huron in Canada.show more

Review Text

"The finest writer of short stories working in the English language today" The Timesshow more